Windows & Pre-Leased Spaces

She's had so much work done on the inside over the last 9 months and yet you wouldn't know it from the outside. If you're paying attention you see lots and lots of trucks making deliveries and debris being taken away, but the boarded up outsides and the make-shift front porch doesn't seem to change....at all. 

At least this week we saw the 56 windows delivered and stored in the garden spaces and bike storage area for protection. We do finally see some progress on the outside as the windows are installed. The boarded up windows in the front are for the stained glass windows to be replaced at the last moment. Just in time for people who will call  Hawthorne their neighborhood from the Phelps-Montgomery house.

Welcome to the two couples who have pre-leased their spaces (the wonders of craigslist and video tours). First floor spaces (Hawthorne and Sellwood) are taken.

Milgard delivered 56 windows

Most were stored temporarily in the bike storage area for safe keeping

First floor leased: foodies from Portland & writers from NC

Drywalls of White

Who would have thought drywall would make such a difference to a sense of space. Although Jeff has the spatial gene, I have the algebra gene - seeing white walls with all the tape and mudding creates the first impact of what presence these rooms will create and yes, there's lots of geometry going on up in the nest. I'll go back to my KenKen.

Delivery through the backside. Too many wires overhead out front.

Lots-o-mud

Garden East (Ross) great room

How's that Nest geometry going?

Nest sleeping area

Nest kitchen/breakfast nook area

First floor landing looking out front door and up to second floor common area

Nest looking down to entry door and across to breakfast nock

First floor east aka Sellwood

Framing and Insulation

Mostly framed in except the nest (still the most challenging, but with the 'coolest view') and it's time for insulation. We've started a "How did we get here?" or more appropriately called "What were you thinking?" list. It's growing...

One item on the list involved insulation in the nest. There wasn't enough room in the rafters for loose fill. Luck stays with us (although at a higher price as is usually the case). The solution a mere 10x the price. But the R-value is now 38 units of wonderfulness.

Over the last week Portland's been in the 90s and upstair is well over 100 when we hold our construction meetings at the end of the day. After the insulation it was the coolest room in the house. 

Jeff zenning in Garden Spaces

Checking plans

Measuring the kitchen island options w/support beams added

Wires, pipes & wood

Loose fill everywhere but the nest

Spray foam - expensive

Space is much lighter with mint green foam

Jeff and Gant in the common stairway

Patches and Pour

Adding pictures of the entryway for the stairs to the East Garden Living Space aka the Ross Island, which will also have a terrace with an entrance to the bike storage under the front steps.

We’re going to officially christen her Phelps-Montgomery since Mary Phelps built the house in 1907 after her husband James Montgomery died in 1900 and as the Portland socialite she was, the proper way to address her (the house her) in public. For those who get to know her better (including those who will live there) we are able to lovingly call her as P-Monty (credit goes to Rachel). We’ll retire her aliases: Three Sisters, Montgomery House, and the Big House; well maybe the last one remains for the book.  

She’s undergoing plastic surgery and looks battered and bruised as expected. Her back has patches of plywood covering past windows and doors to complete the inside infrastructure, and it’ll be awhile before the shingle surgeons arrive for the outside. Yesterday they patched the roof - can't tell the holes were there in the first place. Jeff will also be removing the front door and replacing it with a construction door temporarily while he does his magic to restore the entrance.

Phelps-Montgomery then and now...

The Phelps-Montgomery story is still unfolding...Northwest Digital Archives offers a little information about the Phelps-Montgomery past, in the form of original letters and diaries, we've yet to really delve into. 

Regardless, the Phelps-Montgomery legacy lives on when the historic mansion got some special treatment in the form of zoning code density and housing type restrictions being waved by a special ordinance with the City of Portland.